Recycling = teh bullshit

Thats only in old fashioned dry landfills, read up on wet landfills here.

 

I think recycling is very useful. Look at how much unnecessary packaging is on products these days....

 

Yea, you do have to use a truck to pick up recyclables but that can't really count cuz if you threw the stuff out in the trash you would still need a truck. so the truck might as well be picking the stuff up for decent reasons.


"I think recycling is very useful. Look at how much unnecessary packaging is on products these days...."
yea, i work night shifts unloading boxes and puttings products on shelves at a department store - there's so much plastic wrap and cardboard and bubble paper, etc. - it's a huge waste

You can always recycyle paper in your home, it's really easy - basically you just need to turn your paper into pulp by shredding it like mad, mixing it with water, then flatten it and what not - i'm sure you could do a google search and find more on it. but i did it in a natural resources lab and it was easy and cheap.

There's also better alternatives to recycling your stuff or throwing it out - 'Reduce. Reuse. Recycle' - reducing is the best and reuse your stuff if you're concerned.

~Dan

 

We don't recycle material to make less pollution or better products, if that is what you thought Psilonaut ... The point is to save on certain raw materials only exist in limited amounts, and to avoid storing the type of household rubbish that cannot be burnt and used as energy.

We recycle plastic because it's made of oil that won't last forever
We recycle metal so we don't have to ruin the planet with even more mines
We recycle glass because there is no way to take care of used glass other than storing it
We recycle paper to save the few trees we have left and thereby make sure that we don't endanger species who live in forest eco systems.

Recycling is not about causing more or less pollution in the world. It's about not wasting limited resources. Besides... What do you think happens with all metal objects in a landfill full of rubbish? Show me any metal turning into methane please! Metal corrodes or react chemically with acidic rain, leak through the soil and ends up in lakes and watercourses. The fish gets full of heavy metals and so does the people who eat it. All rubbish from your landfill ends up in the water sooner or later. The very water your kids will swim in.

 

We shouldn't be using oil to make plastic bottles anyways, but thats another topic. Consider the ammount of oil that is required to build the extra recycling trucks, to fuel them and to maintain them. Then consider the chemicals used to clean out the plastic bottles, and the fule for the furnaces that melt said plastic down... Now this process produces alot of pollutants and costs us lots of money. Why bother doing this when we could make new plastic bottles out of plant products (read: hemp) or better yet, set up a plastic bottle exchange program?

Yup, as I said recycling aluminium is both economical and benefitial to the planet.

Bottle exchange, I know all the beer stores in Ontario have a great bottle exchange program that everybody uses.

Trees are a renewable resource, most trees used in the production of paper are farmed trees. And any logging opperation done outside of tree farms have strict regulations they must adhere to. They must be very selective of the trees that are cut down so as to not endager the ecosystem, and must plant several seedlings for every tree cut down in the wild.

As mentioned before, recycling metal is great. And there exsists very strict guidelines that one must follow when constructing a landfill to make sure that none of the [size=-1]leachate reaches the water tables. All newer landfills recirculate their leachate through the landfill to encourage decomposition and the production of methane gases.
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I agree that theres plenty of unnecessary packaging that should be reduced, but I don't see the relevance to recycling.

 

But now instead of having a single truck comming to pick up garbage, you have one garbage truck and one recycling truck.

 

My older brother is convinced that landfills will be our energy resources in the future. It's an interesting outlook, really. When we use up all the oil, we'll drill in landfills and use the old plastic.

But, that's just his excuse for not recycling, lol.

True, recycling pollutes. But, if we recycle we don't have to use as much oil, trees, etc.

Everything humans do pollutes. It's inevitable.

 

Tree farms? We haven't got any of those in my country. But then again, most of my Sweden is forest - mile after mile.
Psilonaut - You are so right about the aluminium problem. It uses up so much energy to make new aluminium products.

Where I live, organic household rubbish must be kept separate from ordinary rubbish. The organic waste (fruit and potato peel, eggshells, teabags and other food left overs) goes in a huge container for production of methane. For every glass bottle you return to the grocery store you get some money in return. It is then cleaned and re-used. Glass jars are recycled. All rubbish in the ordinary rubbish bag has to be burnable so it can generate energy in the local power plant. We sort out batteries, electronic waste and metal separately. It's not a lot of work really, but it makes it easier to create new energy from the waste products rather than just piling them up on a tip.

Metal should never end up in a landfill or on a tip... There is NO effective way today to separate metal particles out of sewage water or leachate. Trust me - I work with these issues on a daily basis. I just finished a project about the problem cadmium causes in water cleaning plants, because people paint with artist paint and clean their brushes under the tap. It's amazing how people think that everything you flush out in the sewage just disappears by magic. The truth is that the cleaning plants only can deal with nitrogen and phosphor.

Me and my collegues recently said no to the local "rubbish dump"'s request to let out their "cleaned" leachate by diluting it with water and water the forest with it. Why? The nutrients would filter through the ground, into the ground water and nearby lakes and cause over nutrient lakes. When I read their report it was obvious that they had no way of getting rid of the metals in a satisfying way. In a case of acid rainfall, the metals would go straight into our groundwater and freshwater lakes. I am currently working on a water plan for the council - we have 114 lakes in my town including it's countryside areas.

I agree with the poster who pointed out the fact that lots of products have unnecessary packaging. Show your attitude by unwrapping the items in the shop after paying, and leave a heap of packaging at the till - or avoid buying the brands that are packed like that. Consumer power! It has worked in sweden. Unnecessary packaging hardly exist here these days. We also have a law that forces the producers to take a certain economical responsibility for the amount of waste their products cause, which has resulted in less packaging.

...I just realised how boring I am LOL! Shut me up please! Please forgive me if there are spelling mistakes in my text - English is not my language...

 

SO recycling paper doest help save trees?

 

Of course we save on trees if we recycle paper. The collecting of paper as well as the recycling process uses up energy, but the forest industry uses up a lot of resources and energy too. Forestry is done with big diesel run machines... Re-planting new trees is also time consuming, costly etc. A lot of endangered tree living insects live in old wood alone. What use would a thousand achers of tiny baby tree plants be to them? Older trees are a great host for a lot of species. De-forestation kills whole eco systems. Some parts of the industrialized world hardly have any nature left.

 

In theory, yes, that is correct. In practice, there are bribes and illegal logging all over the fucking place. This isn't the thread for it, but don't be fooled, the paper companies don't give a fuck about ecosystems, they care about profits. And the government is often in on it (this is why I call our government a racket, because that's what they are).

 

glass is cheaply recyclable, if it can be melted it's cheaper to rectcle if not it's probably cheaper to manufacture new, most methane from landfills is wasted, at least in nevada...

 

It wouldn't matter so much if we didn't think we had to package absolutley everything.

Cutting down trees doesn't concern me too much, because they can be replanted.. although our nation doesn't seem to think that it's their responsibility to do so. What does concern me though is the fact that we think we can just bury anything in the ground and it will break down and cause no harm. What about all the chemicals and stuff people just throw in the trash.. like batteries and stuff like that. I don't know much about that part, but I do know that it can't be good for the earth. Recycling is only a temporary patch to the damage we're doing, because like psilonaut said, there is definately pollution from the process of recycling.

I personally beleive that if we tried to eat more of what came out of the earth, and less processed and packaged crap, that pollution from garbage wouldn't be such a factor.

 

I assume that soon enough, there are going to be debates on whether its heathier to use "free-range trees" for paper or the ones we're going to have to grow on farms.

 

obviously there are better sources for our products that dont require the same measures.

biodegradable plastics are possible.. but do you see them implemented? no, there is still more tradition plasticx, which doesnt not become insignificant as soon as we find out theres a better way (since we havnt actually implemented it).

hemp for paper would mean wed have so much avaiable resource that we wouldnt have teh problems that are had with logging.

glass? well i assumed glass was teh cheapest to recycle since it melts at a lower temperature than metals and doesnt need ot be processed as much as plastic. can you inform me?

clearly though, people put too much emphasis on recycling by turnign it back into maleable form. but i think the better solution is simply using the waste as a material.

for example compressing plastics into dense blocks which could be used for construction, or filler.

or drink bottles can be turned into bongs

 

It is going to consume the same amount of energy, produce the same amount of pollution, to haul off 10 ton of garbage or 10 ton of recyclables. Whether the one truck makes two trips, or two trucks make one trip each.
It ALL has to be transported.

 

Recycling paper makes less trees. There are tree farms all over the place specifically for paper. We have more trees now than we did in the '20's. The more paper we use, the more trees are planted.
A 35 mile X 35 mile X 200ft deep hole in the ground will last us 1,000+ years in landfill space so that is not an issue.
The only way you don't pay for taxes for recycling is if you don't have a job.

 

psilonaut,
you are thinking that you live in a world of infinite resources and unbounded space for accomodation. this is dangerous. consider the world as a whole system and wake up and realize the benefits of recycling. the world doesn't just revolve around you--just because you don't live in the amazon doesn't give you the right to contribute to the destruction of earth's precious ecosystems. you're sitting there, safe, protected, and well-fed; it's understandable that you wouldn't think about these things unless you were forced to. have mercy on the planet.